Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli is a YA romantasy book that came out in 2024 and has quickly grown in popularity since. It is also the first book that I will be doing a world building analysis on as a part of my new series! I figured that talking about world building is fun and all, but to look at stories from books and even video games where world building is prominent can help put the ideas I talk about into a bit of an easier context. So, this is a review, but will focus more on an analysis into how the world of the story is and how it works. As such, there will be spoilers so I’m warning you all in advance about that. Now, let’s dive into a bit of a summary on Heartless Hunter before we really get into an analysis on the world building and my review.
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What is Heartless Hunter About?
Heartless Hunter is the first book in a planned trilogy and is about Rune Winters, a witch who is living in The New Republic following an uprising against the witches that used to rule over the country. Witches once enjoyed prosperity, luxury, and power, but after the Blood Guard’s revolt, the witches have fallen and are being hunted down and purged one by one.
Rune moonlights as a vigilante named Crimson Moth who tries to save the witches from being captured and purged by the Blood Guard. One night, she tries to find a friend of hers named Seraphine, but Seraphine has already been taken away by the Blood Guard. To get her back, Rune decides that she must woo Gideon Sharpe, one of the most ruthless witch hunters in the nation.
Gideon Sharpe is the other perspective in the book and he is a ruthless, cunning, and dark man who has a deep rooted hatred for witches. He finds out that Rune is connected to a ship that helped smuggle witches out and decides to try and woo her as well, figuring that either she is the Crimson Moth or will at the very least lead him to the Crimson Moth.
The story is more focused on the romantic enemies to lovers plot between the two characters and how they both are attempting to trick the other, but simultaneously seem to genuinely be falling for each other. However, this is still a fantasy book and as such, we’ll talk about the characters, but we want to focus on what surrounds the two characters.
Heartless Hunter World Building Analysis
Backstory
The New Republic was once ruled over by witches named the Sister Queens. This shows us that the government structure was once a monarchy and that witches had a very prominent hold on the society. The New Republic itself sits on a peninsular mass of land that stretches quite a good distance, covering many locations featured in the story.
The Sister Queens were overthrown in a rebellion by what is now known as the Blood Guard led by Nicolas Creed. He is referred to as the Good Commander and his objective is to rid their society completely of any and all witches. The rebellion was successful and the Blood Guard now controls society, purging the witches and ensuring that no magic is profilerated any longer.
The New Republic
The country itself seems very inspired by the 1700s or 1800s. Much of it has a very French-English-American vibe to it with the drawings we get at the beginning of the book showing us some of the clothing. The uniform that the Blood Guard dons is reminiscent of the English military uniforms during this period of time as well with the red coats and white undershirts.
Furthermore, we get glimpses into other things that point to us in the idea of a 1700s or at least early 1800s vibe. Firstly, the Blood Guard’s weapons are not swords and shields like you’d see in more of a medieval fantasy. Rather, the guards use pistols and not like the modern pistols with large magazines and plenty of ammunition. These seem to be more like the pistols from the 1700s as well with a few rounds in the chamber.
Secondly, we get descriptions of locations in the country like Old Town, which is a more industrial location that houses the poor working class of the country. Clearly, this is reminiscent of the industrial revolution and it looks probably like something you’d see in the Netflix show Peaky Blinders.
Furthermore, the dresses and clothing that is described, as well as the importance of the fashion industry in The New Republic tells me that this country is clearly not going backwards in time by too much. There are universities, pianos, opera houses, fashion designers, and more. So, in terms of the inferences we can make, The New Republic’s world would be akin to our 1700s-1800s Europe. However, there were some things that didn’t really fit in with this in terms of the clothing.
There were many pieces of clothing that Rune wore like sundresses or leggings that felt a little odd in place of the world. A sundress is nice, but it came about in the 1900s, which isn’t really close to the 1800s or even the 1700s. Additionally, leggings would not have been common fashion either, so there were some flaws with the consistency in the fashion.
The Government
The government structure in Heartless Hunter’s world is very much structured around the Blood Guard led by Nicolas Creed. He seems to be the one in charge of everything and a handful of individuals around him (his inner circle, so-to-speak) are the ones that carry out his executive orders. This is very reminiscent of what happens in situations of a coup d’etat (military coup) like what we’ve seen in real life. The country was ruled once by a monarchical system but a military revolution overthrows the government and installs a sort of quasi-martial law that everyone sort of just agrees to go along with.
I feel like we could’ve seen and learned a bit more about the government in this case. It seems like there’s a lot of interesting things happening behind the scene and since this story covers the upper classes of society, and Gideon Sharpe is a prominent Blood Guard, I felt like we were owed more about how the government works.
What are the laws like and how are they really passed? What sorts of crimes are there aside from being a witch? Who makes the decisions and how is it decided how people are purged? Why is the Blood Guard the ones in charge and why don’t other people seem to mind this? Was everyone dissatisfied with the witches? I feel like more could’ve been done in this part of the story.
However, I understand that the government was not the central part of the story, but the government’s decisions impacted a lot of the plot.
The Magic
The magic system is really well-done for a YA book. I tend to notice that unfortunately, YA fantasy sort of skims over magic systems or doesn’t give them too much thought. However, Heartless Hunter actually did a good job with this aspect.
The magic system is based around blood and that seems to be a pretty prominent theme overall in this book. Witches are the ones who can use magic, so it seems like only women have the ability to use magic in this world. We aren’t really told if there is a male equivalent or why men don’t use magic, but I hope this gets cleared up more in the rest of the trilogy.
Witches offer up blood to cast their spells, which is pretty standard magic stuff. From what we see in the book, we find out that the fresher the blood, the more powerful the spell will be and the less unstable it is to cast. We also know that older blood can cause a spell to backfire on the witch and injure her instead. Furthermore, casting is tricky if a witch is not experienced enough yet.
Most witches use their own blood to cast their spells which means that they must cut themselves. The thing is though, these cuts leave casting scars. These scars look silver against the skin of a witch and it used to be that witches would be proud of these scars. However, now, with the Blood Guard, the scars are pretty much how they find witches instead.
Rune has a workaround for this by using blood from another source: Menstruation. This is a bit of a weird point in the story, I’ll admit, but I suppose it is one way to avoid using blood from herself. However, we also know that witches can use blood from others and that blood from other people is sometimes better for certain spells and can help make a spell cast in a stronger fashion. I think that Rune probably could’ve found a way to get blood from elsewhere.
The spells themselves don’t really seem to have a set definition as to how they are and what a witch can do. We know there are spells that make people tell the truth, spells that create magical fire, block doors and more. I do think it would’ve been nicer to have more set rules as to what the spells are.
Religion
This was something that I felt happened to be missing from the world building aspects of this story. I find it a little difficult to believe that there isn’t at least some sort of religious system in a world that was previously dominated by witches. What religion do the witches have? What religion does the current Blood Guard follow? There are things like Penitents, which are children of people who refused to give up witches, but that’s a term most notably associated with at least Catholicism and we didn’t really get much of an explanation as to why this term is used.
I understand that not all societies are religious, but I think we should have a small glimpse at least at the lore of the world that we are reading about. Maybe there used to be a religious system that everyone followed by just forgot about overtime. It would at least have some sort of influence on the modern world.
I just felt like a gap was missing in the overall story because of the lack of at least some mention of a religious system. You can include an irreligious society, but at one point in time, there had to at least have been some pieces of lore or mythology in my opinion.
Culture and Language
Another element that I felt was a tad missing from the world building was the culture of this society. It does feel very reminiscent of Europe, but I felt like I needed a tad more on this part. I can get an idea of the cultural standards, but I did leave wanting more.
I felt like I had an idea of what this country was supposed to be like, but I still wasn’t able to pinpoint much else. Characters seem to have interesting names like Rune and Verity, but you also have names like Naila. I do feel like a bit more should have been put into establishing what sort of culture we have, what the name of that culture is and more. In Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, I know the culture of Kaladin and I know the culture of Shallan based on names, phenotypic features, language differences and more. Sure, Sanderson does write more in-depth fantasy stories for mainly adult audiences, but I think that any fantasy story should give me an idea of the cultural and racial differences and justify them in the context of the story.
Economy
I think this part was fine for what was needed in the story. The economy clearly seems to be based on industrial manufacturing as we saw in the Old Town that Gideon grew up in. Additionally, it seems like the wealthy tend to be from the higher classes of the Blood Guard or were wealthy elites prior to the revolution.
We also know that witches tended to be noble and higher class prior to the revolution, so that gives us an idea as to why Rune is a noble since her Nan had a large fortune to leave behind for her. I would like to know if the government plays a role in the restriction of the economy and if The New Republic engages in trade or commercial exchanges with other nearby countries.
Character Analysis
Rune Winters
Rune started out her life as being a witch and came from a line of witches as well. Her Nan was also a witch prior to the start of the revolution. When the Blood Guard began to purge witches, they were going to come for Rune and her Nan next. Rune’s Nan insists that she turn her in and save herself, which Rune reluctantly does. Rune is considered a hero by the Blood Guard for turning her own family in and purging a witch.
Rune becomes a vigilante named Crimson Moth who has a goal of saving any witches from being purged. Rune must rescue a friend of her Nan’s named Seraphine but Seraphine has been captured. Rune then decides to try and trick Gideon Sharpe and getting him to like her so that he can help her find Seraphine.
Rune is an intelligent, confident and powerful woman who wants justice for her kin. She is willing to put on a face and skirt by the law in order to do what she believes is right. Rune is willing to go to any lengths to find information and save and free the witches before they are purged, even if she knows that she is putting herself at grave risk.
Gideon Sharpe
Gideon is a Blood Guard from a poor district of The New Republic called Old Town. He grew up the son of two tailors and designers. He has a brother named Alex who is the more artistically inclined of the two. Gideon’s parents get invited to start designing clothing for the Sister Queens and there, he catches the attention of Queen Cressida.
Gideon eventually joins the revolution against the witches and becomes a prominent, high-ranking Blood Guard and very powerful individual in the charge against the witches. He associates with some of the nobility, but he is described as a stiff and cold man who doesn’t really know how to act much in the noble spheres.
Gideon comes upon information that Rune is somehow associated with the Crimson Moth and decides to start trying to win her over to find out if she is a witch, the Crimson Moth, or is aiding the Crimson Moth in some capacity.
Gideon is good at reading people and has an interesting influence over Rune. He also has an intense and deep-rooted hatred for all things witch and he does not regret aiding the Blood Guard in their efforts to purge the witches.
Review
Heartless Hunter was an overall enjoyable story that I personally couldn’t put down. I really liked the chemistry between Rune and Gideon and the high stakes of their very tense relationship. I also found that the dialogue and character interactions were interesting and realistic for what they were supposed to be.
Even if I felt like there were gaps in the world building, it’s impressive what Ciccarelli was able to push into a YA fantasy book, since YA books tend to skimp out a lot on world building elements, sadly. The magic system was interesting (though the way Rune got blood was a bit… discomforting) and the impact of the magic on the world around Rune was interesting.
In addition to this, the lore about how witches fell from grace was an interesting setup for the story and there were a lot of really strong and emotional moments associated with this.
I felt at some points that the romance was a bit fast-paced for an enemies to lovers though. I generally prefer enemies to lovers to have a slow burn romance involved. However, the romantic moments between Rune and Gideon were engaging and it was interesting to see the story from their perspectives and how they both were conflicted over their feelings for each other.
Overall, I gave Heartless Hunter a 5-star rating on Goodreads and I really recommend it if you’re looking for a really interesting and well-written romantasy book for your next read.
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